The word is out

Somehow the idea of culture has got very confused in the UK. Multicultural politics once provided a light in the post-imperial gloom…However, as biological racism has faded away, a form of cultural racism is taking its place, often propagated by left-liberals who consider themelves, um, whiter than white on issues of diversity. Underlying much of the current hot air about “respect” and “offence” we find implicit the idea that as BME’s…we’re somehow more determined by our culture than our flexible white co-Britons…Our more serious conversation has to be with the communitarian politicians who feel happiest when dealing with us in groups. Instead of asking us as individual British citizens what we think or feel about contentious issues, our views are too often inferred from a dialogue conducted with so-called “community leaders”, who are frequently self-appointed, and almost always cultural conservatives, with every incentive to take offence on our behalf in order to preserve their own access to funding and influence. This odd coupling of white liberals and brown conservatives has produced a form of multiculturalism in which culture appears as fixed and fragile as a dried flower…This ossified form of multiculturalism creates casualties within the ethnic minority communities its proponents believe they are protecting. Women, homosexuals, religious, social or political dissidents and artists must all contend with a political environment in which their freedoms are considered less important than the “representative” power of community leaders, who will zealously wield the weapon of offence when their authority is challenged.

Too many wretched years have been wasted under communal political management which skilfully divided and relabelled black and Asian Britons to disable progressive politics…I can’t remember when unelected religious and community leaders, politicians and institutions decided the religious identity was primary and that the broad black political movement was dead as was any claim to multiple identities and complicated allegiances. But they did and it was without our consent. Once human rights and equality activists mobilised to stand up for all victims of racism and the internal oppressions within groups, particularly violence against women and children. Our compassion and action were not rationed, colour-coded or preserved for our own kind…We believed in universal standards and rights which are enshrined in the UN Human Rights charter. Citizens were autonomous individuals with not creatures owned and controlled by rigid traditions…Today the enemy of equality, freedom and justice is as likely to be within. Broken up into simple tribes which compete for attention and resources (who is the most oppressed of us all?), commonalities are negated, differences fetishised. Religionists – Muslim, Catholic, Hindu, Protestant- want not parity but special and exceptional treatment and unacceptable influence over policies. The responses of Salma Yaqoob and the Muslim Council of Britain to our manifesto make those demands without a blush.

During the past decade, a group of self-appointed representatives has sprung up, including the Hindu Council UK and Hindu Forum of Britain; the Network of Sikh Organisations, the Sikh Federation and Sikh Human Rights Group; and the Muslim Council of Britain and Muslim Association of Britain, all claiming to speak on behalf of all Hindu, Sikh and Muslim citizens…For a start, there are problems specific to the structure of these organisations. They tend to reflect a narrow range of predominantly conservative opinion. They generally ignore non-religious, liberal or progressive opinions and yet claim to represent everyone of their particular faith. Any criticism, from the outside or within, is portrayed as an attack on the religion itself, making it more difficult to hold the groups to account. Worse, they largely consist of first-generation, middle-aged men who are out of touch with second- and third-generation Britons.

I have grave reservations about the capacity for moral action of anyone who accepts [indeed, embraces] the acronym “BMEs” — it stands for “Black Minority Ethnics”, and apart from being a hideously ugly formulation, commits the cardinal sin of turning an adjective into a noun… I remember a time when calling people ‘ethnics’ was only one step removed from the n-word…

I accept your point about the document being a compromise, but the language on faith schools is quite weak. They could have their debate and decide that no initiatives could be taken. Didn’t something similar happen when Alan Johnson tried to make Catholic schools more inclusive? His quota proposals were dropped because they were unattainable.

The word pride in relation to identity always irks me. I know that it is used by underdogs to fortify them against an oppressive minority, but too often saying that you’re proud to be X leads to the denigration of Y. Often it prevents Xers from saying anything against X practices for fear of undermining this pride.

“ I had a read of the New Generation Manifesto. It seemed like good stuff, but I had difficulties with the following …”

Well I had difficulties with virtually the entire document.

The New Generation Manifesto is a haggis, a risible hodge-podge of contradictions and factual errors concocted by woolly-headed liberals who want to square a couple of circles and be nice to everybody at the same time. They laud the repressive and discriminatory, affirmative-action loaded Race Relations Act 1976 – an act which, as Ray Honeyford points out in his book ‘The Commission for Racial Equality’ “positively encourages the citizen to perceive society as being divided along lines of colour , race, nationality or ethic origin” and pursuant to which racial minorities are to be considered somehow more deserving than the majority population. Then the signatories go on to condemn ‘racism against whites’ and warn us “[w]hite working-class families also face problems with deprivation, injustice and demonisation”. Thanks a lot – if that’s your problem, repeal the RRA lock, stock and barrel.

They complain that “[r]acial prejudice is no longer the preserve of white people and has become much more complicated.”

When on earth was racial prejudice the ‘preserve of white people’?

They assert that “ segregation is decreasing” but then go to talk about “growing religious extremism”. Both these statements can hardly be true at the same time, since the very core of religious extremism is to exclude, segregate, and persecute the ‘Other’ (to use the gen. term).

Pathetic – not to mention the verbal gunge. “ People want to talk. They need to talk.. Jesus Heinz Christ! Even Archbishop Rowan ‘Susan’ Williams or Rabbi Jonathan Sacks can do better than that. Indeed most of the manifesto could be written by them.

I could continue for a few thousand words but I know that no reader can digest more than two screenfuls at a time, so I’ll keep the rest for later.

but too often saying that you’re proud to be X leads to the denigration of Y. Often it prevents Xers from saying anything against X practices for fear of undermining this pride.

Not necessarily. We’re saying that we are aware and sometimes glad or proud those multiple identities exist. but that neither means automatic denigration of the other neither does it mean we overlook repression.

Repealing the RRA won’t solve anything. The problems are structural, they are a result of govt policy and a result of ignoring deprived groups. Blaming the RRA for the current state of affairs is too idiotic for me to engage with.

When on earth was racial prejudice the ‘preserve of white people’?

This is more in reference to the traditional anti-racist stance that because of gross power-inequalities, non-white people can never be racist. There are still some people think like that.

Both these statements can hardly be true at the same time, since the very core of religious extremism is to exclude,

Not necessarily. The 7/7 bombers were what you could call fairly integrated.

Andy White “Can you be proud of your identity and be concerned about its repressive practices? Pride usually goes along with self-denial when it comes to these things. “

Bill Bragg is a good example of someone more than comfortable with, proud of even, being English working class and white, especially when it comes to sports, yet he accepts what the cruelest legacies of the British Empire have meant to others.

it’s not private anything we’re talking about, and you keep ignoring the objections…

Perhaps we disagree as to the meaning of the word ‘private’. For example, most anti-discrimination laws in the field of employment and occupation criminalise non-government employers whose choice is influenced by the candidate’s race, sexual orientation, religion, etc. But such choices belong to the private sphere (unless by ‘privacy’ you mean only what happens in the bedroom or in the family). Example (just to spell it out): if a shop owner has to choose between a blonde and brunette applicant for employment as salesperson, she is legally free to recruit whoever she wishes. But replace ‘blonde’ and ‘brunette’ by ‘white’ and ‘black’ respectively, and she is liable to charged with a criminal offence if she makes her selection on grounds of skin colour. That’s the law, AFAIK, in most European countries.

I was about to make an off-topic, tongue-in-cheek proposal to the effect that hair-colour discrimination should also be criminalised, but I’ll refrain. Who knows? Perhaps it’s already in the pipeline. In our liberal times, satire writes itself.

If I were President …

As to girls: – they’re made of sugar and spice and all things nice. Statistically speaking, of course.

But – as every Darwinist can tell you – boys are made of rats and snails and puppy-dogs tails. If a schoolboy were president, he would probably propose using a gigantic flame-thrower to blow the bastards away rather than inviting them to a party. Statistically speaking, of course.

That’s why I wrote ‘schoolgirl’ rather than ‘schoolboy’. It’s important to discriminate. It’s important to stereotype. Because people who can’t stereotype can’t generalise. And people who can’t generalise can’t think.

“But such choices belong to the private sphere (unless by ‘privacy’ you mean only what happens in the bedroom or in the family).”

Ah. By ‘private’ you mean as in ‘private enterprise.’ But is that really what you meant in your original claim? Or rather, and more to the point, is that what you meant readers to understand by it? I don’t think so, I think that was a classic bit of equivocation.

“your support for the criminalisation of behaviour based on private preferences and private tastes (aka ‘outlawing discrimination’).”

Surely you’re perfectly well aware that the usual understanding of ‘private’ there is personal, individual as opposed to public – private tastes like one’s tastes in ice cream or friends, not like one’s taste in employees or customers or tenants. Tastes that are reasonably and genuinely none of anyone else’s business as opposed to tastes that are. You’re claiming they’re not, of course, but you don’t get to do it by changing the usual meaning of the word without notice.

Ophelia, Christ-like I will turn the other cheek and refuse to be goaded. The ‘cheap trick’ exists in your imagination and nowhere else. And it is you who are inadvertently playing with words.

Perhaps you are (for once) just a bit out of your depth – you should re-read J.S. Mill. I have always been perfectly clear as to what I mean by the word ‘private’. I mean non-coercive behaviour. If as an individual I refuse to deal with you (for good reason, bad reason, or no reason at all), I am behaving privately, I am acting in a personal capacity as opposed to acting on behalf of the government, say, or as opposed to hitting you on the head or pushing you out of the window.

Racial ‘justice’, facial ‘justice’: I might not like your race, I might not like your face, and you might not like the fact that I don’t and that I reject your advances (to marry you on the marriage market, to employ you on the employment market). But refusal to deal is not coercive, though it might be bigoted or ignorant or stupid and even though I might be harming myself. But I am not interfering with your freedom. I am minding my own business. I am allowing you to go your own way.

But let’s forget the terminological dispute – it is almost beside the point. Call it public, or private, or personal as you will. At any rate it appears that you are in favour of restricting freedom of contract in certain domains. If you support anti-discrimination law as it stands, you believe that non-coercive behaviour (such as refusing to employ somebody on grounds of their sexual orientation, gender, belief, race, etc) deserves much the same punishment as mugging somebody on the street and robbing him of his wallet.

Curious – but that’s illiberal liberalism for you. Lock ‘em up and teach them a lesson.

Cathal, there are practical reasons why we shouldn’t permit non-merit based discrimination in the private economic sphere. You could respond by telling the person who was refused a job to start up their own business, but what if the bank unfairly discriminates when it comes to a start-up loan? If you condemn people to poverty through no fault of their own this will probably create a permanent underclass, some of whom will resort to crime to make a living, making life bad for the privileged; others will languish on welfare, increasing the tax bill. Either way, the poor underclass will neither contribute through work or through having the purchasing power to buy the products of others. You will also be damaging the quality of goods and services we all obtain by restricting the pool of talent from which employees and entrepreneurs are selected.The only limitations to legislation are pragmatic ones: you can’t force people to buy goods from a store owned by someone from a disdained group, but you can more easily punish unfair employers and financial institutions.

With regard to such measures being a restriction on freedom of contract, well yes thy are. But the restriction is outweighed by the freedom it gives others to sell their labour in as wide a market as possible

Okay, Cathal, I didn’t mean you have to answer every single reply! Not even every single reply of mine. But (sorry) I do think it makes for bad discussion when a pattern develops of people making repetitive unilateral pronouncements and ignoring substantive disagreements. That’s all. It’s a broad pattern thing, not an every item thing.

And cheer up. Some bloggers pre-screen all comments, so really I run a pretty loose ship. Plus I did say it’s my own special rule. I realize it’s not particularly ‘fair,’ that people have other things to do, etc, but I don’t much care; I just don’t want the pattern to develop, so I don’t let it. Freedom of contract, etc.

“I have always been perfectly clear as to what I mean by the word ‘private’. I mean non-coercive behaviour.”

Eh? What does that have to do with anything? How are readers of B&W supposed to know what you have always been clear about? The post in question wasn’t clear about it, and that’s all that’s relevant, surely. And that’s not the usual or general primary understanding of the word, so whatever you’ve always been clear about, that’s not how anyone is likely to read it.

And interpreting hiring and friendship as being exactly the same kind of uncoerced thing is not merely some neutral self-evident universal view, it’s stock conservative rhetoric. Of course employers object to rules about discrimination on the basis of race sex etcetera; of course such rules are a limitation on their freedom; there are competing goods here. That’s common knowledge; it’s an argument (at its broadest) that’s been raging at least since the Industrial Revolution got under way. Laws against dumping toxic sludge in rivers are also a limitation on employers’ freedom, but there are public good reasons for claiming the limitation is necessary and justifiable.

“If as an individual I refuse to deal with you (for good reason, bad reason, or no reason at all), I am behaving privately, I am acting in a personal capacity as opposed to acting on behalf of the government, say, or as opposed to hitting you on the head or pushing you out of the window.”

No, you’re not. Of course you’re not. Not in the sense you apparently mean, which seems to be ‘acting in a personal capacity in a way which makes no difference to anyone else and is therefore my right and inviolable.’ It’s delusional to claim that actions which do affect other people and/or the world they live in are purely personal and private in the sense of making no difference to other people.

“If you support anti-discrimination law as it stands, you believe that non-coercive behaviour (such as refusing to employ somebody on grounds of their sexual orientation, gender, belief, race, etc) deserves much the same punishment as mugging somebody on the street and robbing him of his wallet.”

“If you support anti-discrimination law as it stands, you believe that non-coercive behaviour (such as refusing to employ somebody on grounds of their sexual orientation, gender, belief, race, etc) deserves much the same punishment as mugging somebody on the street and robbing him of his wallet.”

Do I? Really? Do you seriously want to say that?

Well, what kind of punishment DO you propose? Anti-discrimination law without punishment is no law at all, and you are in favour of anti-discrimination law, so you must be in favour of SOME kind of punishment.

In France you can get sentenced to imprisonment for racial or gender discrimination, even if you’re a small shopkeeper (don’t know what the law is like in other countries). Would you object to that? A Chinese restaurant owner (say) just prefers to employ a fellow-countryman rather than an equally qualified Frenchman or Moroccan? Lock him up? Is that OK in your book? Think about it. For three minutes.

Or a reprimand? A fifty dollar fine? Five hundred dollars? I’d really like to know your view on this point — even without justification. Just tell me. Perhaps I have misunderstood you.

BTW again: what’s wrong with ‘stock conservative rhetoric’? There’s also ‘stock progressive rhetoric’ and ‘stock Marxist rhetoric’ and ‘stock religious rhetoric’. There are all kinds of stock rhetoric. Stock rhetoric is always a bit of a bore but it may be right, it may be wrong. To say something is stock rhetoric is really just to say you’ve heard it dozens of time before, which isn’t an argument.

Finally, of course I’m aware that private activities can affect other people — even if I choose vanilla, I adversely affect chocolate makers. I affect people when I turn down a date. But to affect somebody is not to exercise coercion, it is not to agress them, it is not to INTERFERE with them (the gospel acc. to J.S. Mill, I think).

Calm down a little, Cathal. (And if you would, stop telling me to think.) Not all punishments are the same. The fact that one approves of or endorses or declines to condemn a particular law says nothing about what sanction one wants to attach to the law.

No, I realize saying it’s stock whatever is not an argument, but you seemed to me to be striking an attitude of originality – but perhaps I was wrong about that.

As for Mill: no, you’re oversimplifying him drastically. I think you’re confusing him with Ayn Rand.

Confusing HIM with Ayn Rand? Me? That so-called ‘objectivist’ libertarian? That philosophaster? That great novelist? I actually started to read one of her ‘novels’ .. couldn’t get past page 73 … best thing since fried Valium … [mirth] [laughter] You must be joking [spluttering coffee thru nostrils ] …

Teatime. The gong sounds. The maidservants queue to salute me …

the butler bows … the cook cowers in fear … oh yes, ‘Atlas Shrugged’ was the title, even had some soft porn …